“No, we’ve searched. Feels like we’ve been walking in circles.” Toivo eases himself into the snow as Aysha comes over.

I try not to look at the red spreading beneath his knee.

“We killed the maahinen,” Morgan says. “It took everything we had. We’re all pretty spent.”

He catches my eye and I think I know what he’s trying to say. He’s used up his own store of energy, but that doesn’t mean he can’t use someone else’s. I give his hand a squeeze, hoping he gets the message I’m sending.

“Elemental mages aren’t built to fight like this,” Aysha says before she starts humming over Toivo.

“Luckily we’ve picked up a few tricks from MacCrone’s book.” Aoife offers my brother a weak smile. I’m a little envious they all know runes I don’t, but I’ll catch up later when we get out of here. If…

“Time moves faster here,” I say. “It’s only three days till Kekri in the real world, so we only have a few hours here.”

“As the veil gets thinner, the chaos mage is only going to get more powerful. We can’t waste any more time.” Aoife looks at Toivo, who offers her a stoic nod.

“Good thing we’re here, then.” Katya holds up her hands, blue sparks dancing between her fingers.

“Not quite good as new, but good enough,” Aysha says, and Toivo mumbles a thank-you as he tests his leg. It’s not bleeding anymore. Aysha mops more sweat off her forehead. Using her magic this much is going to exhaust her too.

“Don’t think we’ll be enough to defeat a chaos mage who got the better of MacCrone,” Toivo says.

“We have to try.” Aoife struggles to her feet with Morgan’s help. “Is Sorin back?”

“Not yet.” Toivo winces as he puts more weight on his injured leg. “He went out hoping to track down Hannah or the mage, but he’s been gone a long time.”

“We need to find the hiisi in this liminal realm,” I say.

“Is that what we’re calling it?” Katya asks, but no one answers.

“We have to stop the mage from getting another shard of the Sampo,” I continue.

“But how?” Morgan asks.

“The forest. Every time I’ve asked for help, it’s answered me one way or another.” I take a deep breath, very aware of all their gazes on me—especially the glower I’m getting from Toivo. “I don’t think it wants to hurt us,” I continue. “It’s just afraid.”

“It was afraid, now it’s pissed.” Morgan shudders. “Really, really pissed.”

“You spoke to the forest?” Toivo asks, incredulous. “How?”

“In Finnish. With words.” I’d roll my eyes if the situation were less life-threatening.

“That’s—that’s a form of shamanism,” Aoife says, a frown folding across her forehead.